Fertigo 'aint no Alfred Hitchcock.

So, I just thought I would share with you another new favourite font of mine, Fertigo. It's delicate and lovely, and it's available free here. Can't believe I'm giving that one away.

Anyway. My life is crazy busy - as usually happens this time of year - and I've been in a flurry of activity! Excitement! I do have some challenges in mind for the upcoming weeks; it'll just be finding time to do them!

Happy Friday!

Sew, what's new

Okay. So, I pretty much rule in the whole suck-at-keeping up a blog realm of the earth. This house business has kept me busy, and between birthdays and all the other little things I've been doing, life has been busy. See that? So extremely busy that busy is italicized.

Anyway. Excuses, excuses. I have been busily crafting, which has been wonderful - but I should be documenting my results here. And, to be quite honest, I miss my daily design challenges. They were fun and whimsical and made me happy.

But! The house is much more set up now, and so I will be able to start using my studio,my drafting table that's been stored away for so long... I'm excited. The studio has been such a fun project for me! I am now in love with spray paint - got some old frames, scuffed them up, and had a lesson from theGuy, who is the king of finishing (let's be honest here.. he kind of.. erm.. saved the day and made them what they are) and printed and framed some of my daily designs. But my favourite thing of all is that I finally busted out the lovely sewing machine I got from my mom for Christmas in 2008 and made this curtain:

It's felt. I cut those circles out and sewed them together! I can't take credit for the concept; Design Sponge had a lovely tutorial and I just gobbled it up! Happy Days! I now have a sweet little curtain on the door to the balcony off my studio, and I love it.

Keep checking in. I have a few projects I'm excited to share with you, but I have to wait until they are officially released to the public before posting them. Stay tuned! Happy Friday!

Not a latte

Today someone was nice enough to pick me up a latte from the evil coffee place that starts with an 's'. I fancy myself a bit of a caffeine junkie - I run off the stuff. Butt I drink teas, people. TEAS!

I will never drink a latte again. I am so jittery right now, I could literally register on the Richter scale. Serious!

So, to take my  mind off it, I whipped up this jittery little latte.

Type sourced from Dafont, it's called "Lakestreet".

Oh baby - this is going to be some crash!

Rain on my parade, why don'tcha

Just a little quickie with my new favourite font, Museo (with a few little tweaks, of course), which, incidentally, became my favourite just in time for Dell to swoop in and make it theirs ... hiss.

It's raining, it's pouring, the old man is snoring or something. I know that rain is all spring like, and hey, I'm not against the whole April-Showers-bring-May-Flowers thing, but it is making me yawn and yawn and yawn, and I need a little pep in my step!

Home at last

I'm baaaaack.

Although it may have seemed like I was slacking off big-time, I've actually been knee deep in moving: drywall dust, boxes, paint - working from dusk till dawn (actually, way past that, but there aren't any cliches that I can think of which will sum up exactly how hard theGuy and I have been working). There's still some unpacking to do, pictures to be hung, but the house is really starting to come together and feel like ours.

Our friends lived in this house previously, so I've been here many times. After we first moved in, it felt oddly like we were just hanging out at their house, instead of feeling like ours. So, we painted. 

And painted and painted and painted. Oh yeah, and there was this whole incident with plaster and drywall dust that still leaves my skin feeling like it has a film of dust on it. And so, the cleaning...

That occupied a lot of our time but we are now at the point where I can steal away to start the crafts that I have planned. MUAHAHA - so, my apologies for my digression as I get all house, house, house on you, but I thought I would share today's little project!

This is my bathroom door (aren't those windows at the top cool!?):

I don't quite know whose idea it was to install a door with a window on the bathroom, but I made the most of it. I found an awesome idea on the Design Sponge website, and decided to give it a go - making it look like the windows were etched (when in reality, it's simply frosted mactac, a paint marker and a little creativity!). Here's a close up (and I apologize for the bad photos - I haven't unpacked the cord to my camera yet, so these were taken on my phone):

That's all for now - stay tuned!

Typwnd

I did NOT do this glorious book, although I wish I had!

Graphic designer Lauren Kaiser is the brain behind this amazing take on your typical picture book. Instead of using standard fairy tale imagery, she used type to convey the emotion of this tale. I found this tale over at Type Theory and, wow.. am I ever glad I found them. I thought it would be nice to share a little tidbit with you since I've so been on the absentee side, and that is a blogging no no!

Thinking about it, what a brilliant idea this book is... it would help with kids reading outloud, learning to emphasize the big words to make the story come to life. Or, if the type is a little hard for them to read, at least the parents can get a kick out of it! 

Ooooooh. Scary, ominous typography. Nightmarish and delectable at the same time! 

I may just have to keep this up my sleeve for my  next (not-so) daily design. Cheers!

Pack it up, pack it in.

Although I know I'm coming off as a complete slacker who has totally forgotten her vow to RULE THE EARTH by adding some creativity to her daily life, I truly haven't been a slacker - moving  is just taking over my life as I know it.

But every time I write the room on a box for packing, I try to make it pretty. And sometimes I add things that I think might be humourous to those lovelies that are helping us with the move. Like "Box 'o Booze - Precious Cargo" or "Living Room, yo". (I may find myself more funny than I am. Whatever.) Also "What are you doing reading this box? Get to work!". That's what I wrote on the Ringbolt wine box (we got all our boxes from the liquor store. MAKE SURE YOU TAKE THE INSERTS {three people told us that} they're pretty) box.. where I also wrote Ring (Patti Likes) Bold (Ryan likes)... and, let's just say I'm going LOOPY with all this packing business!!!

So, bear with me please - I am going to be scannerless as soon as that badboy makes it into a box... I will return and get back to the challenges!

Wish me luck (and if I don't return in 3 weeks, I'm buried under a box somewhere, and leave this blog to my brother, Tim)!

Closed-circuit

I adore typography. Adore. So, as a combined effort of today and yesterday, I decided to design a font. It's called circuitboard because it reminds me of the inside of a computer. Pretty as it is. The intended purpose of this font would be for each letter to be used as a drop cap. You could write about computers!

Getting ready for the move. Two weeks from yesterday! Purging, purging, garbage, garbage. Spent the entire day running around yesterday for some crafty items, to come back with only a couple shower curtains. Seems like the crafts may not happen till we're all moved in. Something tells me we have our work cut out for us!

Case of the Sickies

Obviously, my last design challenge didn't exactly turn out as I had planned.. my last week kind of went by in a haze. Between the cold medication and the congestion in my head, it was like a crazy mental block! So, I went to a cartoon doctor, and the official diagnosis is in - I had booger brain!

So, sorry for the lack of posts; life has been a crazy whirlwind, and this booger brain really took me out of the game. I am going to put in loads of effort to get back on track, because I miss my design challenges!

Next week, we're watching theGuy's parents house, so I may not be at the computer much, but I'll see what I can do!

Slacker

I am such a slacker this week. Okay, wait. That's not entirely true. I haven't been a slacker, I've just been very, very, very busy, and also battling a cold. So, you see, the whole combination doesn't really go together very well. At all.

And, if you're feeling sad that you haven't seen any daily design challenges worth seeing this week, check out these gems of awesome! Best daily design portfolio I've seen so far! So, if you're looking for inspiration, that's the place to go - and maybe it'll inspire me right out of this rut I've been in!

Looking forward to getting some time to create this weekend. Moving day is two weeks and two days away.. and holy work, batman. We'll be hard at it, for sure!

kjlsadkjalksjdaksjd

This is my brain on drugs.

When I'm sick, I'm a big baby.

And between all the running around I've been doing, seeing so many fun people I don't get to see nearly enough, I got like 2,409,890 colds all at once. And so, to combat the ridiculous sniffles, I have turned to the dreaded cold medication. Which means I've been on vibrate since Saturday.

So, I've been slacking on my design challenges, sleeping, and my taxes, all in the name of trying to get better. Tonight, I finally had the energy to sit down and design something; I even had an idea! But it just wasn't happening. Stay tuned!

Mr Sun, Sun, Mr Golden Sun

I think that the weather was trying to prove me wrong today. After my snow blower design, today was the most beautiful day we've had in a while! The sun was shining, the birds were chirping, and I had the most lovely walk home I've had in a while. It's so nice to see the sun shining later into the evening. I am imagining myself spending summer evenings sitting on our new patio, sipping a summer tea, soaking in the sun. Ooh Mr. Sun, Sun, Mr Golden Sun, Please shine down on me!

Ode Canada

Since my posts seem to have some Canadian flavour (Olympic fever!) I thought I'd share a couple amazingly awesome videos that pay tribute to this great country!

TONIGHT, POUTINE!





Shane Koyczan Talksreallyfastandwhathesaysisawesome



Enjoy! :)

Snow Day.

On the weekend, theGuy had to borrow his step dad's snow blower so that we could clear our driveway, because it was almost impossible to get in or out. While watching him carrying out the hard labour (I like watching), I thought of how similar the snow blower is to a lawn motor. And then I realized that in any Canadian winter, I would likely use a snowblower more than the lawn mower.

Okay, snow. I've had enough - is it time for spring yet?

Kings of the Castle!

I'm not a sports person, but I'm all about teamwork! So, although I griped and groaned to watch the hockey game last week, that last hockey game was definitely one that got the blood rushing!

And Canada... all those gold medals..

Not only do we have heart, we have 14 gold medals, too!  It was a rocky start, Canada, but it was a great show, and congrats to team Canada for pulling it off!